


An Invisible Truth

by usagigirlff



Series: Moca's ChikaItaWeek2020 [3]
Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: ChikaIta Week 2020, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25725091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usagigirlff/pseuds/usagigirlff
Summary: [#Chikaita Week 2020] Day 3: Flowers/Rainy Days/BunniesItaru never thought he'd be wearing this again...
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru/Utsuki Chikage
Series: Moca's ChikaItaWeek2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864408
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54
Collections: ChikaIta Week 2020





	An Invisible Truth

"Chigasaki. Even for you, this is a bit…"

"Senpai, I know what this looks like. Let me explain."

"Please do."

* * *

It was a gloomy Sunday, the onset of Fall turning Veludo Way into a red flurry of leaves that created a damp undertow to unpleasantly treed through toward any destination. 

As such, the general populace were indoors, or at least waiting out the weather from glass windows, partitioning warm golden smells of pumpkins and spices from the drafty gray skies of the cold outside.

But of course, Mankai Company had no such short giving when it came to promotion. 

Although the Summer schedules had successfully ended with a bang, and appropriately funded the program for the next season, Sakyo was a much as slave driver as expected, driving the troupes to gather as much disposable income before the next Veludo Way night walk on Halloween. 

While the costume inventory had nearly quadrupled since the first night walk, the damp fog of fall created a need for emergency maintenance to preserve the quality of more sensitive fabrics. The storage room took a considerable hit during the unending rain that had flooded the area post summer drought. 

It was all hands on deck for the costume squad, repairing and reinforcing articles typically used for outdoor promotions, leaving only the more hearty or more generic articles to be spared for promoting members. 

Within the whirlwind of activity at Mankai, Itaru had shut himself into his room to grind away at games, hoping the other members would leave him out of costume preps and fittings. Purposeful or not, he'd planted himself a little eye of the storm paradise to stubbornly grind away at tiering the new fall lineup of events, scoring himself a secure spot at the top of his more competitive games.

Well, that was his plan, until Banri, dragged into the costume assembly line thanks to his annoying talents at being good at everything, including sewing, had pointed this simple fact out to Sakyo.

… If the fact that Taruchi was beating NEO in the leaderboards had anything to do with the observation, that was between them.

Nonetheless, this was where Itaru found himself. Blissfully free of responsibilities, perfectly poised to receive the full ire of the Mankai Yakuza.

With the remaining dredges of guilt for prioritizing tiering over the last Night Walk, Itaru voluntarily turned himself in to be manhandled into whatever costumes were ready for fall fashion, only to realize that of the remaining stock of costumes, only one fit his size.

Yup, there it was, the one size fits all, furry abomination punishment for night walk. Sometimes karma was really a bitch.

Itaru stood alone on the curb, flyers in hand, wistfully wondering if anyone would notice if he spent the rest of the evening at one of the many cafes lining the avenue. The golden glow of lights was washed away by the dreariness that enveloped the street, calling his name, even in this stupid outfit.

_I'd probably have more luck giving these out indoors anyways..._

Just as he was about to abandon his position, a familiar green head poked its way through the fog, walking down Veludo Way with a roller luggage bumping its way down the sidewalk.

_Shit._

Quickly glancing around for a hiding spot, Itaru realized the futility of his actions going completely unnoticed with their current proximity. Even if he were to dive for cover now, the fuzzy purple jumpsuit was pretty much made to be annoyingly eye catching, and hiding would only draw more attention to his discomfort.

_Seriously shit. Well, not much to be done now._

Itaru picked himself up and put on his best showman smile. If he had to suffer through this, at least he could grab a partner to join him.

"Perfect timing! Senpai, welcome home!"

For a split second, a flash of pure confusion when blue eyes finally met him flicked across his expression, but it flattened out into a cold, hard stare. Itaru could feel his senpai looking at him, bright fluffy ears to his matching boots. Then he seemed to make his decision.

Chikage made a swivel around his luggage and tried to escape.

_Ohhhhh fucking no you don't_.

Itaru wasn't agile, but Chikage was in no position to publicly start sprinting either. He dashed toward the hand grip on the luggage bag, ears flapping in the wind, effectively trapping the fleeing man by his baggage. Both parties were caught in a full stop with the bag suspended between them.

_Oh hey, this situation reminds me..._

"Dear! How could you just walk out on me like this!"

"..."

Chikage was frozen in his steps as he tried to formulate a way to get out of this, but even he could recognize the futility by the growing crowd of curious passerbys.

"Please, dear! Think of our children! You can't just leave them all alone after everything they've done for you! We need you!"

_"A impromptu street act?"_

_"Whoa! Aren't both of them are super hot!? What troupe is this?"_

_"Is that supposed to be housewife pajamas?"_

Blue eyes we're now narrowed towards him, as if daring him, 

_You really going to make me do this_?

Itaru gestured his head toward the hand holding the luggage,

_If I'm going down, you're coming with me. Come on, senpai. Give it your best._

"We already know about your lies! Your other job! I accepted this when I married you! Just come home to us now!"

Itaru let go of the luggage, spreading his arm wide and playing up the sad wife role. He didn't usually play this kind of character, but it was kind of fun. 

"... You don't understand."

Chikage turned around fully, tilting his head to the side as though unable to face his sweet wife.

"My lies, they've all caught up to me."

"Dear...?"

"I have to leave the country soon. There's no other way for me to escape my debts."

Itaru was surprised. The somewhat cold tone of delivery matched his hysterical pace in an odd compliment. This could work?

"If you must leave, we'll leave with you! But we're not letting you leave alone! You're our family! Please!"

"..." Chikage glanced his way with a glint. O-kay, maybe he was getting a little too real.

"-Please! I didn't want to have to tell you this now... not like this... but who's going to support them when I'm gone?"

_"Wow, that's a plot twist!"_

Itaru could tell Chikage was enjoying the shift in story more by the small relaxing of his posture, so he decided to roll with it.

"The doctor... I don't have much time left. Whatever debts you have, I can carry them for you! Just promise me that our kids will have someone even after I..."

At that, Itaru choked up a bit, looking down. Maybe he was emulating the dramas Citron liked too much, but this kind of over passionate acting at least distracted from the ridiculousness of his outfit. Win-win. Nice thinking, Taruchi~

Chikage let go of his luggage to move toward him, wrapping his arm around Itaru's fluffy waist. He looked Itaru in the eyes, gently wiping away imaginary tears from his cheeks.

"... I'm sorry. I didn't know. But even so, I should have never tried to run away from my burdens and leave you all behind... It was wrong of me to go."

Done with wiping away his "tears", Chikage took Itaru's free hand, dramatically gripping it in a romantic gesture. 

He leaned his face in closer, forcing Itaru to tilt back into the arm holding him by the waist or risk spilling his flyers onto the damp ground.

"I promise, this time, I won't let you go again."

Damnit, he knows what this is doing. Itaru felt a little bit of heat rise up to his face by the blatant show of intimacy. Even the slight smirk on his face was getting to him.

Claps and whistles showered them from the rather sizable circle of people that had gathered to watch their impromptu performance.

Chikage smoothed out his smug expression and helped Itaru straighten out, stepping back. 

Itaru took the moment to plaster on his own expression, turning in a slow circle to smile brightly at the crowd. 

"And that was Mankai Company! Thank you very much for watching!! We have a performance coming up later this month and it would be our pleasure if you could come and see us then!"

The crowd clapped louder, giving a rousing applause for the sudden street act. Itaru and Chikage bowed a couple times to their circle, before handing out flyers to those who were interested.

To Itaru's surprise, the number of people they'd managed to attract was enough for him to hand out all the remaining flyers for the day, some even asking to take a picture of the last flyer with their phones.

Eventually, the crowded dispersed to busy back home or at least indoors to nearby bars and cafes, somewhere out of the cold.

Finally free to relax his persona, Itaru shook out his hand to clear some of the soreness from clutching onto the stack of papers all afternoon. What a thankless job. Still, he hoped he managed to attract at least some buying customers. He patted down his waist for his phone... before remembering that this cursed jumpsuit didn't have pockets. Damnit.

Speaking of which,

"Chigasaki, even for you, this is a bit..."

Oh right. Senpai wasn't there during that event. Mankai Company's first Night Walk.

"Senpai, I know what this looks like. Let me explain."

"Please do."

"..."

Uhhh. Where should he start?

"Well, it's meant to be a bunny?"

Cold blue eyes zeroed in on the long flops of fabric hanging off his hoodie.

"Yes. Well. That much I realized."

"Arrg. This is too much work to explain."

A green brow arched upward in amusement.

"You're the one who offered."

"I unoffer. This is a pain. Senpai, carry me home."

"No."

"Why not?"

Chikage nudged his luggage forward a bit.

"What. Can I ride it?"

A long suffering sigh, "Chigasaki."

"Not you senpai, the luggage."

Chikage started walking.

"Hey, wait!"

Chikage didn't stop, but he did slow down to let Chigasaki catch up, bumping their shoulders together before setting pace.

The rain dampened piles of leaves crunched a little under foot, catching slightly on the metal casters rolling behind them. Chikage was quietly glad that Veludo Way was home to so many theatres since no one seemed to care that he was walking next to a giant purple rabbit.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop for some curry?"

"Didn't you say you wanted to go home?"

"Well yeah. But you did mention you wanted to try out some of the new menus for the cafes around here. Seems like a waste if we don't try it out now."

Chikage was surprised, "I wasn't aware that you followed my blog that closely."

"Well, I don't. But you did mention to Kantoku-san that you wanted to 'scope out new places' before you left. It's been a couple days, but if we go now, they'd probably still be new enough to beat the trend?"

Chikage really needed to stop underestimating him. Itaru could be oddly observant about the people around him, even if it was hard to tell from his general demeanor. 

It was one of the reasons why Chikage felt like they were on a more equal playing field. While there were other adults living at Mankai, none of them could quite pick out his lies from his truths the way Chigasaki could.

"Well? I could change my clothes if you have some clean spares left. Eating with an over 20 year old man in a rabbit costume might be painful."

"Chigasaki, I love you."

"...?!"

They both stopped where they stood. Itaru was still turned away, looking at the signs of the cafes across the street. His profile played an orange glow from the cafe lights behind him, filtering like a sunset though his honey blond strands.

"... Say that again?"

"Chigasaki. I love you."

Itaru's ears turned a bright red, visible even in the backlight. He instinctively shoved the back of his hand against his face to cover the brilliant red streaking across his nose and cheeks, peering at Chikage over his fingers.

"Senpai, why did you have to say it now."

Chikage thought about it, "I just felt like it."

If anything, somehow that answer made his blush deepen and Itaru quickly covered his face with both hands.

"Ugggg. It was the curry wasn't it? Talk about unromantic reasons to get my first confession. Srsly fail."

Itaru turned back the way they were coming from, scooping up the luggage determinately. He resolutely stomped ahead a couple steps, head still turned away.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go find your new blog post."

Staring at the back of his boyfriend's fuzzy purple onesie, Chikage turned his head back toward the road they'd been heading down.

"Actually, the shop would be this direction."

"... Figures."

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm doiiing here~ But that's okay, because tomorrow I'm really going with no plan (≧∇≦)">
> 
> The last punchline I'd initially written up as "... Senpai. KY." Which works a lot more in context, but that's a joke that only really works in Japanese (take my word for it, it's very Taruchi!) Still, if you'd like me to explain what the original meant (and some simple translations on JP Slang) leave a comment and I will, but I won't take up anymore space here~
> 
> There's been a lot of ChikaIta Week fics being uploaded so I hope you all have been enjoying it as much as I have! See you tomorrow~☆


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